The game's afoot with the BHCTI Catalog

Closing in at last on the proposed BHCTI Library Catalog through American Biblical Higher Education's ABHE Solutions, though I've yet to have a clickable link for the stinker; The first iteration will feature individual links to all the items in both of our affliated GoogleBook libraries, BHCTILibrary 'Proper,' and BHCTILibraryToo, as well as Logos Bible Software's stand-alone website of full text ebooks at Books.Logos.com, and in addition all the content of ebook vendor Questia (and not only the 5,000 or so free full text items).

Those who recall our long relationship at BHCTI with Questia will remember that though the company sells individual accounts, Carroll has set these up for our students through student fees. The catalog will still require an individual login for any Questia content outside their 5,000 freebies; but Carroll students will know their accounts, or can ask...

A part of our 20,000 or so print collection (approximately 4,000 MARC records) will also be included. I hope in time to coordinate those catalog records with my available print items.

All in all, having author, title, and subject access to 75% or so of our items across vendors and platforms is a serious improvement, and (with apologies to Samurai Jack) 'an historic victory most worthy of our logs.' Or blogs. We should have the bugbots dispensed with before the month is out, so keep watching this space (and my wiki)...

Print also progresses

One benefit of being out to hear Dr. Hargraves at our Summer Colloquy has been the opportunity (in the interstices) to unpack boxes of books to arrange on the inviting shelfspace provided in the new Carroll Digs. So the number of items whose physical location I can vouch for gained slightly, up 66 from 135 to 202 as of June. The revised list is at a special page here on my wiki for the curious....

Read Dr. Hargraves for the Spring Colloquy

If you're coming to our Summer Colloquy, you'll know we're hosting Christian psychotherapist Dr. Terry D. Hargrave of Fuller Seminary. Read up a bit on him in NexLearn; Questia makes his book (with Franz Pfitzer) The New Contextual Therapy available full text; there are articles by Dr. Hargraves there, and more in Wilson Select Full Text (currently available in OCLC FirstSearch). And current carroll Students can ask me about interlibrary loan (ILL). You can always visit my wiki if you need help navigating the library block in NexLearn. Hope to see you there...

New ways to squirrel away

If you're a BHCTI Student, you may have seen this message:

You will notice that some of the resources and links in Carroll Institute's website have been combined or shifted to other menu sections. These modifications are in preparation for our transition to a new administrative interface -- ABHE Solutions. ABHE Solutions is the new platform for student records and class registration. Current students will soon be receiving more information and specific instructions related to class registration for the Summer term.

A catalog to centralize our collection of data and serve as a multiplier of access points has been an ongoing need at Carroll; and through ABHE, we soon ought to have one. Watch this space for updates- and on a faster basis than in the last 6 months, guaranteed....

Google ebooks

Value added by the folks at Google to our BHCTILibrary "Proper" and BHCTILibraryToo Google Book collections include links from any individual ebook the those Carroll Library collections of free full view items to the Google ebook page, where you can download copies to your computer. That will also serve to advertise their service for Google e-books that are fee based; more on the purchase of suchlike as they develop the resources. Meantime, give them at http://books.google.com/ebooks for your own individual purchasing...

How to use the Google Libraries

Those of you using BHCTILibrary and BHCTILibraryToo may find the quantity a bit overwhelming; I'm going to suggest some searching strategies to make your time more fruitful:

• Choose a 'bookshelf' related to a Carroll 'area of concentration', for instance, 'Foundations of Education.'
• Or, type in a search (like Martin Luther) in the search box under my name.

Slow build

Development of my wiki (focused mostly on Library Instruction and expanding web site listings) and the reigns of teaching BHCTI 5000 (Gateway) for BHCTI has not stopped me entirely on my quest to place 10K or so full-view ebooks I'd discovered into Google Book libraries where they can be found easily and sorted by Library of Congress letter ranges, BHCTI areas of concentration, and suchlike 'bookshelves;' but it has sure slowed me down. We hit 1,600 'reviewed' items in the second collection, BHCTILibraryToo ('Too' for short) today; that makes our combined take about 4,100 items in both current collections (the other is located at the first BHCTILibrary, the BHCTILibrary proper, so to speak; therefore, 'Proper' for short). If Google retains its current ceilings of 2.5K titles per collection, I've got about 1.4K left to add to 'Too' before I create a third Googlebook library; I'm going to try speeding that process up with weekly adds there, and updates here. It's been my hope for a while now; and like Bilbo hoping for his eggs and toast in the Hobbit, 'not for the last time.' Stay tuned...

Posting, modern or not...

Winter Colloquy's coming, and you may want to bone up on your invited presenters ahead of time.

• There are quite a few full text articles of Merold Westphal available in our ATLA databases (now on the Ebsco platform); I'd submit his 2003 piece for the Christian Century, 'Blindspots: Christianity and Postmodern Culture' will give you an advanced taste of his substance and style.
• Similarly, B. Keith Putt surely scores a birdie with 'Risking love and the divine "perhaps:"postmodern poetics of a vulnerable God' in 2007's Summer issue of Perspectives in Religious Studies.
• You'll find more articles by both, and the ebook Modernity and its Discontents by Westphal, full text in Questia.

Get reading!

EBSCO Available

Carroll students and stakeholders, Ebsco is now a clickable button in the NexLearn online resources (with pride of place at the head of the list- it is, after all, our home for religious-studies specialized article citations, including full text). You can use it for ATLA Religion, ATLAS, and our newly acquired Old Testament Abstracts and New Testament Abstracts. This is ancillary to our purpose vis a vis Googlebooks, but it's kept my attention, and I figured you'd want to know why I'd been out for a bit...

Keep up on education

More full view Google Ebooks added in the "Foundations of Education" area of concentration (Faith and Heritage cluster, or FHFND for short) at BHCTILibraryToo today. Zwingli's short work on Christian education notable...

Calvin Miller knows Art

You may already know from the Carroll Homepage that Calvin Miller is to be our featured speaker at the Spring Colloquy next month; you might even know the Colloquy topic will be "Christianity and Literature."

• Does "Art" sound like an awfully broad topic to you? Go wide with Oxford Reference, or go deep by exploring the Cambridge Literary Histories in NexLearn's Cambridge Histories Online (CHO).
  
• But what will the author of of a host of writings (like Spirit, Word and Story) say on this topic? Perhaps you can get a inkling reading some of his book reviews full text in OCLC FirstSearch via NexLearn; search for "Miller, Calvin" as a author, and read his take on Buechner's Son of Laughter, Hughes' Satan's Whispers, and Bailey and Blevin's Dramatic Monologues; Or consider his own exposition of "Genesis 1:26" from the journal Review and Expositor. Also, see what other reviewers and writers have to say about works by Dr. Miller.
• Or branch out into the world of Interlibrary Loan by contacting me...

And a little more Education...

Some weeks are crazier than others, but in each one I try to add more Google books relevant to Carroll Disciplines to specially-designated Google Libraries. We have been chugging slowly uphill in the "Foundations of Education" area of concentration (also called MFFND here at BHCTI) in our BHCTILibraryToo account (affectionately referred to as "Too") for some time now, and will for some time to come. Click the link to review our progress!

A bit more yet

We've added a few more titles in Foundations of Education to 'Too today; just some more steps on the road!

Keep on keeping on

A handful of new books to add to 'Too today; no big breakthrough numbers, but just a steady flow...

It's an education

Just a few more "Foundations of Education" titles added today to 'Too; note the Google upgrade that changes our "Tags" (try Foundations of Education, or MFFND, or our broad Library of Congress Call Number setting LC) into "bookshelves." I'd call it a net gain, so far...

Questia adds more journals

Questia (available to Carroll students via NexLearn) has added new articles to its existing periodical titles, and also new periodical subscriptions. If you've been used to using Questia just for ebooks, peak at its new list of periodical titles (journals as well as magazines) here.

Education underweigh

The first new entries under our Foundations of Education area of concentration (subject cluster MFFND here at Carroll) are staring to appear on our collection of Full Text (i.e., full view) Google Book library at 'Too. Have a peak at what's developing...

And Missions plays out

What's up to bat now that the Missions titles are posted? There are plenty of Areas of Concentration left, so watch this space, and visit 'Too to see the latest Missions offerings....

More missions

Not quite played out, BHCTILibraryToo's Missions materials (Area of Concentration WMMIS) grew a bit today.

Michael Lindsay articles for next week's Winter Colloquy

You've seen some of these if you've been dilligent checking OCLC FirstSearch in NexLearn, but these links come to us courtesy of DBU's own Doctoral Research Librarian, Dr. John Jaeger. Have a look at these entries by and about our featured speaker:
http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~mlindsay/biography.html http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/november/33.35.html http://www.cceia.org/resources/transcripts/0001.html http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2009/mayjun/1.18.html